A look at Mudclaw’s rebellion
BY THE STORY TEAM
Mudclaw is one of the most tragic figures in the long history of the Warrior Clans. A fiercely loyal cat, who we see again and again as devoted to the protection of his Clan, he turns against the will of StarClan and tries to kill Onewhisker to become the leader of WindClan. StarClan kills Mudclaw with a bolt of lightning before his plans can come to fruition, but the former deputy is admitted to StarClan despite his rebellion.
Why? Why did Mudclaw plot against WindClan’s new leader, and why did StarClan forgive him? With the new graphic novel, Winds of Change, the story team wanted to delve more deeply into Mudclaw’s motivations and figure out exactly what caused this former deputy to betray his Clan.
To understand Mudclaw, we have to look back at all that he, and WindClan as a whole, lived through in the time before The New Prophecy series begins. Mudclaw was already a full warrior with an apprentice the first time we saw him in Fire and Ice, and he fought in the series of battles with ShadowClan that ended with WindClan being driven off their territory and out of the forest. Fireheart and Graystripe helped the Clan to return home, but the horror of losing their territory must have lingered, and Mudclaw became more and more protective of WindClan’s borders. Most of the WindClan cats resented the fact that, after ShadowClan drove out Brokenstar, ThunderClan kept him as a prisoner rather than executing or exiling him, and Mudclaw, angry and distrustful, accused ThunderClan of choosing to shelter a murderer.
ThunderClan’s deputy, Tigerclaw, used Brokenstar (now known again as Brokentail) and his captivity to try to assassinate his own leader, bringing Brokentail’s remaining followers into camp in a rescue attempt which Tigerclaw used as cover to try to murder Bluestar. When that failed, he became leader of ShadowClan and used the promise of power to convince Leopardstar to combine their Clans, giving him control of RiverClan as well and putting the remaining Clans in danger.
Despite the fact that WindClan united with the other Clans to defeat BloodClan, Mudclaw learned the lesson that other Clans were not to be trusted. While Onewhisker was friendly and welcoming to the cats of ThunderClan, especially his friend Firestar, Mudclaw became suspicious and guarded his Clan’s borders carefully. It was clearly a point of contention between the two cats—Onewhisker and Mudclaw argued repeatedly. Mudclaw saw Onewhisker as overly friendly to ThunderClan, while Onewhisker viewed Mudclaw as unnecessarily hostile.
Tallstar chose Mudclaw as the new deputy of WindClan after Deadfoot’s death, and Mudclaw’s wary approach to the other Clans seemed to mesh well with Tallstar’s patience and levelheadedness. As their forest territories were destroyed and the Clans traveled to the lake, Tallstar grew more frail, and Mudclaw took over more of the leadership of WindClan. He spoke for WindClan when Tallstar became too weak, and he was determined to keep them from being cheated out of new territory by the other Clans—a not unreasonable fear, based on the Clans’ frequent border disputes back in the forest. Repeatedly, Mudclaw and Firestar clashed as Mudclaw felt that Firestar was trying to make decisions for every Clan.
The real trouble started when Tallstar used his last breath to name Onewhisker his new deputy, with only Onewhisker, Firestar, and Brambleclaw within hearing range. Tallstar believed the new territory required a new, more peaceful kind of leader, who would work with the other Clans instead of fighting against them. Unfortunately, this led to Mudclaw returning to camp to find his leader dead and the ThunderClan leader, who he had never trusted, presenting Onewhisker to the Clans as the unexpected new leader of WindClan.
While Mudclaw didn’t believe Firestar at first, he listened to Barkface, WindClan’s medicine cat, and backed down rather than fight Onewhisker. While he refused the deputy position, he worked with his Clan to establish their new camp, and it seemed as if he might settle back into being a loyal WindClan warrior, however reluctantly, under Onestar’s leadership.
But several different circumstances kept that from happening. Since the cats had not yet discovered the Moonpool, Onewhisker led WindClan in a kind of limbo: he had not yet been approved by StarClan or received his nine lives. He was leading WindClan, but he was not an official leader and no cat knew when or how he would be able to receive StarClan’s approval. Onewhisker also appeared to be an indecisive and weak leader. Still finding his paws, he allowed Firestar to speak or make decisions for him multiple times and, eager to show his friendship to ThunderClan, he gave away a stretch of hunting territory to them. Mudclaw, along with several other WindClan warriors, worried that Onewhisker was being too accommodating to ThunderClan, perhaps to the detriment of his own Clan.
Mudclaw had a volatile mixture of emotions around Onewhisker’s new leadership of WindClan: jealousy, suspicion, anger, and anxiety. But these feelings still might not have led to conflict if Hawkfrost hadn’t been whispering in Mudclaw’s ear. The RiverClan cat was hatching his own plans, plotting to gain power, and encouraged Mudclaw to fight Onewhisker, convincing the WindClan cat to offer Hawkfrost the deputy position if he helped him in the battle.
We know that Hawkfrost wanted to get rid of Firestar and to replace him with his own half-brother, Brambleclaw, so that they could rule over the Clans together. Is it hard to believe that Hawkfrost would have fed Mudclaw’s suspicions of Firestar, who Mudclaw already thought had far too much influence over Onewhisker?
Mudclaw had seen a cat use his charisma to take over other Clans. Tigerstar had first convinced ShadowClan to follow him and then took over RiverClan as well, making Leopardstar a puppet leader beneath him in the rule of the new TigerClan, without fighting a single battle. Now Mudclaw saw Onewhisker working closely with Firestar and giving away territory to the cat who had named him WindClan’s new leader. With Onewhisker’s unimpressive first moons as leader making him seem weak, and Hawkfrost at Mudclaw’s shoulder feeding his wariness of ThunderClan, Mudclaw came to believe that it was his duty to defend his Clan, even if it meant he had to kill Onewhisker and become WindClan’s leader himself.
Mudclaw’s actions were terrible, but his goals were pure: he truly believed the choices he was making were for the good of WindClan. And so, after his fiery death, StarClan welcomed him among them and he was able to join his ancestors in watching over his Clan.
